Brain Wave Entrainment Therapy for Insomnia

Aim:The main aim of developing this device is to provide drug free therapy for insomnia without any side effects and in cost effective manner.

Objective:1. To develop a device to generate sleep inducing stimuli such as audio, visual and acupressure.2. To provide audio-visual and acupressure (AVT) stimuli to insomniac patients to sleep before.3. Validation using Polysomnographic study.

Insomnia is condition with difficulty initiating sleep difficulty in maintaining sleep, characterized by frequent awakenings or problems returning to sleep after awakenings. It may result in an increased risk of motor vehicle collisions, as well as problems focusing and learning. Existing methods to treat insomnia are sleep hygiene, cognitive behavioral therapy and sleeping pills, that has strong side effects when taken for long time such as drug addiction, and also it is expensive. The main aim of developing this device is to provide drug free therapy for insomnia without any side effects and in cost effective manner. This device provides drug-free treatment through a user-friendly environment that enables relaxation of brain and muscles.

Audio-Visual & Acupressure unitTools adapted towards the treatment of insomnia are audio, visual, acupressure unit. Two audio signals at two different frequencies given to left and right ears. This results in binaural beat signal in delta band. Visual input (Red LED) is also given to two eyes through eye-mask to block the entry of external light and the acupressure were given on an acupoint point was found to be as HT 7 of both wrists of the hand. Manually applied acupressure, the consecutive time intervals of ON & OFF may not be exactly uniform. Electronically controlled automated system is developed where pressure is applied for 30 sec & relaxed for 120 sec with uniform magnitude of 20 minutes.

These inputs are now applied as a stimuli just before the bed time. After the intervention of this therapy for a brief period of time participant felt much improvement in their sleep pattern. Some even experienced disturbance free sleep throughout the night.

ValidationHowever to scientifically establish our claim Polysomnographic data was performed for few patients. Results demonstrates the improvement in quality of sleep after the intervention of brain entrainment.